A Transformation in 3 Acts
by Little Obsessions
Summary: "She considers the gravity of what he says as if it is a trifle. In this hell, or heaven, or dream, whatever it may actually be, there is no pain. And he is here." This story chronicles 3 key moments from Esme's first year in 3 chapters. In character and canon.
1. Act 1: The Tempest

**A Transformation in 3 Acts**

**None of the characters mentioned herein belong to me. They are the property of Stephenie Meyer and affiliates and I make no monetary gain from them. This disclaimer applies to all of the chapters. **

**Author's Notes;**

This story follows the structure of a traditional opera - 3 acts - and examines important points in Esme's newborn experience.

At the beginning and end of each chapter is a quotation from the piece of 17th century literature – Carlisle's time of transformation- which inspired the chapter.

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"_Hell is empty and all the Devils are here."_

_The Tempest_

_William Shakespeare _

She feels the fire recede first from her fingertips. She will always remember how suddenly it extinguished but how long it took her to notice. When it initially goes she's reluctant to believe it because it seems like it has been burning for eternity. It takes her a while to notice really because it's been there for so long that she has almost grown to love it. She feels it acutely as it floods away from her fingertips, then up her forearm and then finally into her chest. Her heart burst within her breast at that moment, into a fury of fire which thuds against her ribcage as it singes every sinew of her chest cavity. She is immobile as it thunders, trying to claw its way from her breast bone to burst through her burning skin where surely it will leave her body in a trail of flames.

She hears it trampling against the fire. Hears those beautiful voices that have feigned concern over her hours of burning. The devils who are watching her say words she doesn't understand.

_It is finishing Carlisle. We have to be ready. _

_You know her? What is this about?_

_She is so still Edward. It must be the morphine. _

_Please, do not think badly of me. I could not let her..._

And then there is nothing. Absolute silence and cold. The first fires of hell are gone and she lies motionless on a cloud. Underneath her fingers there is velvet, she feels it as if for the first time. It is soft against the sensitive pads of her thumb and forefinger. She hears her fingers scratching over the material and it is grating to her ears, shocking her in its audibility. She stops the movements before she order her fingers to do so.

She lets her mouth fall open, surprised that it's so moist. After quenching her thirst with only more fire, she is shocked to find that taste is heightened because she had imagined the fire in her mouth had broken her ability to taste again. She tastes the air around her as her lips part. She tastes the fibers of the velvet and the ash of fire which crackles nearby. Then the two devils; one tastes like metallic piano wire and fresh paper. The other like leather and candles but something else that is delicious, something that petrifies her.

If she could concentrate enough she would realise that you cannot taste these things, or at least you shouldn't be able to, but she is overwhelmed by sensation. She can't discern taste from smell and smell from touch.

Her eyes. She hasn't yet opened her eyes.

They spring open and above her there is a cornice from which hangs a brass chandelier. One of the candles is flickering and one of the edges of the cornice is chipped.

"Esme."

Suddenly the cornice disappears behind the face of a man. One of the devils. It is the most beautiful, most unearthly face she has ever looked upon. For the second time in her life she is rendered breathless by this face. There are planes of ivory pressed against a strong jaw and honey-hued eyes framed by indecently dark lashes. Lips that are almost too angelic and pink are pressed into a concerned frown. She thinks a halo crowns him but no, it is blonde hair that glows almost white. His mouth lifts upwards into a smile that is tentative and unsure, dimpling his impossibly smooth cheeks. She smells him more closely and there is something delectable coming from him, from the very essence of him. It is on his skin, hiding under the smell of clean soap and ink and candles and leather.

And suddenly she is on fire.

This time it is a different burn, right behind her larynx and concentrated only there. Where once it was fire now it is acid that rots her throat. It is spreading up through her gullet and scorching her pallet. It scalds every sinew of muscle and inch of flesh in her throat and when she opens her mouth, she is surprised that it is not fire that spews forth. Instead it is a scream.

She clambers up onto the edge of the couch and away from him, her feet slipping along the velvet as he pulls back from her as if to give her room. She grips the arm of the couch with her fingers but, like warm clay, it folds under them until it splinters into pieces. With fright she withdraws her hands to stare at them. They are the same as they always were. Her finger though are smooth and fine. Her nails, no longer bitten, are long and clear. These, she concludes as if she were merely an observer, are not her hands. Yet they are.

Then they fly to her throat and wrap around the skin there, clutching at the pain as if it is touchable.

"What is this?"

Her words are a snarl as she looks wildly around the room for the source of the smell, the taste, the desire that is pooling in her. The room is not hell as she imagined it, though she had always imagined hell was a personal thing. She never believed the pulpit preaching of brimstone and pits of fire. She pictured a private hell, she has lived a private hell too, so she feels intimately acquainted with what damnation should look like.

In her mind, hell did not look like a simple parlour yet here she is and this is hell.

Across from her there is a fire crackling, and around the walls there are shelves lined with books. Perched against the fire surround, attempting to look deceptively at ease, there is a young man. Then the other man, the beautiful doctor, is nearer her. He is evidently more vexed than his companion, and while both of their eyes watch her carefully, his eyes are dark with concern where the boy's are unreadable.

"What is this Dr Cullen?"

Her recollection comes as a surprise to her and to him as well, for he comes towards her a little more and his eyes widen.

"Am I dead?"

She already knows the answer. She still feels the soft grass under her feet, her toes curling over the rocky edge, the wind as it whips her gown around her legs and ankles. Then the freedom of the fall, arms spread, feet pointed in an echo of the deportment classes from a life before. The wind had whipped her hair too and carried all of her terror away, pulling her into the blackness of the thrashing sea below.

It had been so lovely to die. So silent.

Yet, she asks the question anyway and is surprised by the answer.

"No. I must explai-," he steps forward and the burn is suddenly back.

"What is this?" She screams again, this time leaping from the couch and over-reaching, crashes into the coffee table. She recoils back as quickly as she lands, horrified and confused by her own strength. She crouches there like an animal, prowling. She has never bent her knees like this or snarled like this. Nonetheless it feels inherent to her and so she does it like breathing.

"Carlisle," the boy suddenly says, with the air of having solved a riddle, "She smells blood on you. She needs to feed before you can speak to her."

"I changed my clothing after-"

"It doesn't matter. She can still smell it. I'll be back as quickly as possible."

They look at each other for a moment, as if sharing a secret, then the boy nods and disappears out of the door.

She scurries backward and cowers in the corner, her knees coming all the way up to her chin as she angles herself in as closely as possible, keeping her eyes on him at all times. She doesn't think that he is a threat but nor does she fully trust him.

Even though she knows him...almost intimately.

She has known him in her dream and day dreams. He has been the hero in both her fantasies and nightmares.

She is sure he is a torture of her damnation but what beautiful tortures there are in hell.

He keeps his distance now, staying at the entirely opposite end of the room. His hands are thrust upward in a sign of surrender.

"I'm sorry about the cellar," he says, "It was...necessary."

She doesn't understand what he means so instead she asks again.

"What is this? Where am I?"

Just as he opens his mouth to answer the stench of something overwhelms her. It is both pungent and delicious and she wants to drink it. She wants to drink every last drop and yet it is blood. Something tells her it is blood. It is not the blood she wants but it will do for now. It has similar olfactory notes to whatever was on his skin but it is less desirable, less wholesome yet infinitely more abundant in its stench.

"Blood?" She rasps.

He nods slowly, enough for her to read agony in his face, as the door opens.

The desirable smell is juxtaposed with a bizarre sight; the boy is lugging a large deer over his shoulder. The smell grows stronger, not the blood she wants, but the blood she can have.

"Edward brought a gift for you."

At the smell of blood, still warm and fresh, she feels her body being consumed by desire. He drops the dead animal in the parlour, before the fire, and she is crouching over it before she knows what she is doing. Her lips latch onto the pelt, her teeth easily tear the fur and flesh and fat and she gulps the warm silk down into her gullet.

"We shall leave you while you eat."

But she is already ravenously attacking the dead beast, her shame overridden by her urge to feed.

After she is done she kneels back and drags the sleeve of her gown across her mouth. The beast, which was previously at least three times the size of her, seems shrunken now it is emptied. There is a small scarlet pool just under the neck and she leans forward to lap it from the parquet floor languidly but pulls back as she hears their footsteps outside the door.

She doesn't protect the deer as first instinct might incline her to do. She knows they don't want it and she's flooded with blood anyway, making her stomach slush and her reflexes dull. She just crawls beside it and is suddenly very aware of her appearance.

She is wearing a cotton night gown but it is splotched with blood from her feed and her hands are softly tearing at the hem in her anxiety. Her hair is caked with congealed blood. She feels hugely humiliated.

They open the door anyway, ignorant to her embarrassment.

They don't look at her with pity or shame but she averts her eyes from them because she is afraid that their countenances will soon change when they realise what she has done. The boy scoops up the empty carcass, his nose almost wrinkling in disgust as he throws it across his shoulders, then flows out of the room as if he has just thrown a silk shawl around himself. She watches him go then turns her attention to her throat as she traces her fingers over her gullet.

The fire has receded, and like a rash, just burns dully with prickling intent. She knows it can grow more though, her instincts tell her that. But relief is finally hers. She feels more calm now, at least.

She should be surprised that she thinks as a predator now but she is not. Instinct is intrinsic; instinct to eat, to kill, instinct to survive.

"It will not go away," he says as if reading her mind, "The burning. It takes a very long time to ignore it."

"What do you mean?"

She is shocked by the musicality of her voice. The silkiness of the blood has transformed it from a rasping, guttural screech to a velveteen alto that flows from between her lips.

"I am going to come closer to you," he says and she notices that he has changed clothes and that his hair is wet, the blond now a dark yellow as it is pushed damply back from his face, "You should not be able to smell the blood any more, I hope."

"Please don't," she holds up her hand to stall him, "I don't want to hurt you."

"You cannot hurt me," he reassures her, "You and I are of similar...strength."

He comes nearer where she sits in the centre of the floor.

"You will have so many questions," he says softly, "And I can attempt to answer them all -"

"Do you remember when you tended to me?"

Shock flutters across his face, chased by his disarming smile a moment later. He was obviously not expecting this to be her first question but he seems amused that it is. He folds his arms around his legs, pulling them up to his chin to mimic her pose.

"Yes...very well," he answers.

She tilts her head to the side and tries to pull back the curtain of fog, which hangs like dense velvet, across her memory. She knows him and yet the memory is blurry and undefined, as if she is staring at it through smeared glass. She had fallen from a tree. Her favourite cotton dress, which she had outgrown so suddenly that summer, had been torn as she fell. Her dress had been torn but her leg had snapped, as he eloquently described it, 'quite neatly.'

Her hand slips onto her knee, which still grows sore on cold days, and she realises it does not ache any more even though she had knelt on it and sat like that for a while. His eyes are following her as she does this. He seems amused, his eye brow arching over his left eye quizzically.

"Quite neatly," she repeats in a half-whisper, almost forgetting his presence as the image regains focus and sharpens as those nickelodeons do at the pier. It grows brighter and stronger in her mind and becomes a full image, coloured honey and pale tones. Tinged with cold hands and touches that were forcefully gentle.

"Edward has said your memories are vivid," he says softly, despondently, "But with time they fade."

She delights in that promise and her hope is renewed. She will forget it in time, the brutalising, the threats, the agony at his hands. She will forget her child. Can she bare to forget her child?

A little sob retches from her mouth but she swallows it before it is realised.

Perhaps this is not hell, perhaps it is heaven. But who, in taking their own life, is rewarded heaven?

"Esme," he whispers, turning his face to meet hers, "I hope you will forgive me. I could not let you die, so young...so broken. I remembered you so very vividly."

"I don't understand," she says, "I am not dead?"

"There is no way to explain it without it being unbelievable," he answer solemnly, "I was not as tactful in my approach with my companion, Edward. I wonder, do you think me changed since we last met?"

It was true, as she stared upon his face, that he had changed. Yet she only noticed it in her heightened state. His skin glistened more than it had, and there were tiny fine lines around his eyes when he frowned. But to her human memory he was unchanged, untouched by the decade that had stretched between then and now.

"No," she shakes her head, "You have and you have not changed."

"No, not to your human memories at least. You see me better now because now you are like me."

He looks at her, his eyes soft gold. She wishes to say that she sees him better and still she is dumbfounded by his unearthly beauty.

"And what are you?"

She already knows as she asks. She knows the answer; the lust for blood, the unnecessary breaths, her newly found flight, have already told her what she is. She has known, really, since the moment she awoke. She imagines that this was instinct too.

"An immortal," he confirms, "A vampire."

She simply tilts her head forward once to show she understands.

"You are unchanged," she whispers, "Because you cannot change. I will wake up from this dream soon, won't I?"

"No," he shakes his head, "This is not a dream. I changed you Esme, to be as I am and as Edward is. You are immortal, an immortal who thirsts for blood and will be faced with innumerable challenges. However it can be so much more than that."

He sounds earnest and pleading, as if he is looking for her approval. His eyes search her face, awaiting her answer.

She considers the gravity of what he says as if it is a trifle. In this hell, or heaven, or dream, whatever it may actually be, there is no pain. And he is here. Even if it is not real it is certainly better than before. If this is death, then death is welcome more now than it ever was.

"Will you show me?"

"Yes," he says gently, with the reverence of a vow, "Yes of course."

At that moment the door opens again, and the boy re-enters. He looks very like the doctor, now she has had the time to focus properly. He has the same diamond-dusted marble skin, the same topaz eyes, the same gleaming teeth and lips that are too pink. She looks up at him.

"Esme," the doctor motions towards him, "This is my companion and friend Edward."

"Hello Esme," the boy called Edward tips his head to the side and offers her a wide, genuine grin, "Welcome to our home."

The doctor stands to rise, and his shoulders are pushed back to reveal his full height. Beside his companion he is shorter, but still a tremendous height in comparison to her. He wraps an arm around his companion's neck and they both look down on her.

"Yes, Esme. Welcome to our home. Your home...if you will allow us to be so presumptive."

She thought at first they were devils but how clearly now she sees they are angels. She smiles, her mouth curling beautifully along her jaw. A brave new world.

"_O, wonder!__  
__How many goodly creatures are there here!__  
__How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,__  
__That has such people in't!"_

_The Tempest_

_William Shakespeare _


	2. Act 2: Paradise Lost

**Thank you for reviewing the previous chapter. I hope you enjoy this and please read, review and favourite. **

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___Greedily she engorged without restraint,_  
___And knew not eating death_

"Paradise Lost"

John Milton

The cry of terror is unrecognisable, yet the sound emanates from somewhere deep within her throat. It is a noise she knows she should not be able to make, yet here it is, coming from her diaphragm, rippling over her larynx and flying from between her lips.

She wants nothing to surprise her any more, yet every single moment she is introduced to a new facet of this life it surprises her. It comes like a fresh blow each time. The burn in her throat surprised her, the scarlet of her eyes shocked her, the solidity of her body horrified her. It has been nothing other than a woeful surprise at every turn. She should hate it, she has told herself, yet she can't.

She thought, naively, that she had it under control. With the doctor and Edward it was so _easy_ to believe she would never desire it. They had tried to warn her but with them as her guides it felt so unlikely that she would fail. They have shielded her so well from what she truly is. Had their warnings been almost patronising, as if they were sure she must do it at some point?

It is all over her. It has turned her hands scarlet and it is caking over her forearms in a dry, flaking skin that is cracked and broken – scales like a serpent. She feels it trickling down her neck, a little river of blood.

It still smelled delectable even as it mingled with the fresh scent of the forest and the clean smell of the detergent on her dress. He must have scraped his hand on the bark and released the delicious scent into the air. The next moment she was flying towards him.

She had greedily lapped at the blood; resentful of the little trickles on either end of her scarlet mouth, yet somehow she had finished absolutely covered in it.

His flesh was pliant under her lips, the rivulet of bites so much easier to make when she felt so overcome by thirst. It was like an inexplicable agony which only this crime could anaesthetise. This is a crime.

It is only when he is drained completely that the shroud of animalism lifts. She thought that the first time she would feel it, truly feel it, it would be made of iron. The desire would be frightening but inescapable, like manacles and chains. Like Charles. But no, the shroud that envelopes her humanity is made of rich red velvet and it embraces her tenderly, as a lover might. It is heavy and inescapable and comforting as she drains him. It is what she is made for, to be wrapped in this shroud of inhumanity and it feels pleasant, warm, right.

Suddenly, though, there is no more blood to pull forth with her predator's jaws. Suddenly her prey is just a carcass and then that carcass is very suddenly a man. In all of a minute, she has become a killer.

There is a man in front of her. Not a carcass but a man.

It is then that the noise she thought herself incapable of rips forth from her throat.

She crawls backwards from the still twitching, roasting, lifeless body of the hiker. There is black terror in her chest now, climbing up to her throat to choke her. Her venom flies from her mouth, landing on the grass at her feet and searing it as a droplet of acid might. She screams and screams and screams. Then, there is iron around her chest. Two perfectly white hands stop her even though they are acutely aware that it is too late. Against her ear, lips just pressed to her hair, he makes inadequately soothing noises.

"Edward," he orders quietly, "Deal with the gentleman please."

His marble arms are still around her chest and they are locked in the centre. He is not making them rock back and forth - her cradled within his embrace as her screams continue - it is her that is making them move rhythmically, in time with her cries of horror. She feels him using all his strength to keep them where they are.

She watches the young boy effortlessly scoop the body of her victim up, just as he had lifted the deer in the parlour during her first night with them. There is a reverence in his movements, as if he were carrying a child to bed. She wants to go to the man to mutter sorry against his brow and say she will atone. How does one atone?

She wants to ask the vampire who has scooped her into his arms now, but it just comes out as that noise. _Dr Cullen, why?_

Suddenly fury, white and solid, comes over her and the shroud descends again. She pushes him away, so much so that he flies and thumps against the trunk of a nearby oak with a sickening thud. With a screech of fright, the birds who had nested within its branches depart as he stands up.

Edward drops the man's corpse at once, coming to his father's defence as he crouches beside the other man and snarls back at her. She wants to shout at him for dropping the body so carelessly but right now she has no control over any of her actions. She wants her body to stop everything it is doing; she wants her knees to straighten from their defensive angle, for her teeth to stop snarling, for her venom to stop flooding her mouth.

She is trapped inside this predator's body. She is screaming against a velvet lined cell. It is not a shroud. It is a cell. She is trapped in the body of an animal, an animal which has so much more control than her.

"Esme, please," unlike his son, he has not taken a defensive stance. Instead he holds his palms up to her as he always does when he wants to show either of them that he means no harm, showing that he is entirely vulnerable. His face is agonised, sculpted fear. It is so human. It is beautiful but so human. She hates him for it; for his control and his humanity.

This is her chance. She dives at him, all the while that same vile scream rips forth from her mouth of its own volition. She goes directly for his throat, tearing the starched cotton of his collar - a product of her hands that very morning - and the silk of his tie as if they are paper. Then, finally he uses the strength he is capable of as he order Edward to 'stay back!' He grips her with a hold the likes of which she has never known. His hands are iron on her shoulders and her granite bones feel as if they might turn to powder under his grasp. She winces and moans in pain and she sees fear in his face as he realises that he is hurting her.

Golden eyes, ancient and breath-taking, are staring into hers. She feels her cell grow fractionally larger, feels Esme, whom she at least knows and feels safe with, emerge just a little, as those eyes linger on her face. Then the scream comes back.

"Esme," he says softly, gently, "Esme do not do this to yourself. Please Esme, please. I do not wish to hurt you Esme. Please Esme."

Her scream feels more like her own this time, pushing from her heart rather than her diaphragm. It is ragged and thorny as it comes forth from her mouth. His desperate pleas have broken the spell.

"Please," she pleads, surprised that she isn't so stripped of her humanity that she can still use the delicate language with which she feels only civilised beings should be blessed, "Please take me away."

He doesn't even shift position to carry her more appropriately. He just stands up. Her legs are wrapped around his hips and her face - her mouth smearing the man's blood all over his shirt - is pressed completely into his shoulder. She doesn't even lift her head to see Edward finally realise it's safe enough to start disposing of the body.

She supposes he has done this before. Of course he has done this before. His father will have shown him how to get rid of a victim. And anyway, for a while the two of them have been waiting for her to do this. They must have prepared for this final shedding of her humanity as parents prepare for their child's first steps.

It is almost romantic in its reality; this is a step all newborns take. She has taken the step she had to take.

She is weak within his grasp. She is so slack that she feels him use his strength to hold her. He doesn't even go through the front door, instead he jumps onto the porch, then onto the awning that sits just below her bedroom window. With an effortless hand which he takes from her back, he pushes the sash open. She whimpers as he moves his hand. Doesn't he realise she needs him to hold her forever, so she might never do this again?  
She expects him to drop her on the bed and leave her in disgust. She wants him to do that for it is no more than she deserves. She waits for him to place her down and never come back.

The cell is widening, the shroud is lifting, and what she has done is becoming clearer to her by the second. The full comprehension of what she has actually done will really occur to her later, as he fills the water for the seventh time, but right now she feels it dancing around the periphery of her intellect, teasing her with it's solid reality.

She has murdered a man.

She feels blunt, like a pebble or an old knife. She feels emotionally blunt. There was so much a moment ago, and now there is so much that it has become nothing. She feels nothing because she feel everything.

He walks past her bed and instead opens the bathroom door. He places her gently in the bath and immediately turns the taps on. Water gushes in a stuttering motion from them, and he fumbles - she has never witnessed him fumbling - for the plug. His fingers brush her ankle as he pushes it in.

Her dress was light white cotton but it's now splattered with poppy shaped blood patches. She should be self-conscious as the water climbs and soaks the dress and the silk of her underwear and darkens her stockings and garter. She isn't.

"You need to remove this blood," he reaches for a towel, dips it in the water that is ripping softly and begins pressing it against the partially dried blood on her shoulder. It starts to slip free of her skin and make scarlet tendrils in the clear water.

She says nothing; not as the water reaches the top and he stops the taps, not as her dress turns a filmy transparent white, not as the water is tinged pink by what she has done.

She is frightened the scream will emerge once more.

He drains a little of it away then turns the hot water on again. He wrings out the towel and throws it in the sink once she is fully cleansed. Will she ever be fully cleansed? She watches as he twists off the tap and slides down on to the tiles to lean against the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom.

She wants him to go away. She wants him never to leave her. She does not feel blunt about him but she does feel very confused.

She looks at her hands through the rippling water, the water he had, only moments ago, made warmer. They are pale ivory. They are claws. They are so dangerous.

Then she finally, properly looks at him. She has saw him in a limited view until now; as a doctor, a saviour, a creator, a friend, a kind, generous man. A man on whom she has pinned her affections. She has never once considered just now dangerous he is.

She can only know it because she has felt it now. She has been it. She understands his golden eyes, his reservation, so much better now.

Hours pass. He gets up every once in a while to warm her bath even though she doesn't need it. She cannot lift her head to meet those golden eyes.

What she has done is now fully with her, filling her from her toes upwards. She is sure she would feel made of ice if it weren't for the hot water he is shielding her with. She realises he is shielding her again.

Night falls and he does not move. He does not take his eyes from her. She wonders, fleetingly and only once, about Edward. He has not come home. She knows though that he will be fine and Esme is glad. She is glad he will be okay. He might never forgive her but he will be safe.

Who could forgive such horror?

As time marches on and midnight comes and presses it's blackness against the milky window, he gets up to refill her bath once more. She lets him, pulling her legs up to her chest to accommodate him. She finally, bravely steals a look.

She has hurt him. There is no predictable evidence of this; no cuts or bruises or bites like one might expect on a human. His posture and his pained, half-lidded eyes tell her instead. His collar is almost completely torn, exposing his neck, and the fact he is stooped over the lip of the bath draws her eyes to look here. She has, it occurs to her as a surprise, never seen his neck before. It is always hidden under high collars, thick scarves or neckerchiefs. The skin is flawless ivory but she is taken aback by the cluster of scars which spread from under his ear, curve into his neck and fade just beside his collar bone.

They are uneven and silvery, like opal or pearl, catching different colours in the steamy light. They are ugly in comparisons to his skin but they are beautiful nonetheless.

Her hands itch to feel them and she pulls them, dripping, from the water. She touches the scars and in a moment he recoils, not as a predator, but as if he is burned.

"Please," he says softly as if begging her, "Please do not touch them."

She dips her head and feels the scorch of humiliation. She hadn't quite realised, but somewhere in between seeing his neck and seeking to touch that delicate skin, her shroud had lifted completely and Esme had returned.

She sobs dryly, openly and suddenly. It is an ugly harsh sound as she cries. She does not shed tears and this is oddly a relief because she feels that if they could come they might never stop. He stoops over her and scoops her half out of the bath, soaking himself as he does so. It is as if they have switched the noises of the world on again with her weeping; like a silent wireless suddenly brought to life. As she weeps he speaks softly, reassuringly.

He speaks now, for the first time ever, of his love for her. Even though she has known it since the moment she opened her eyes. Scarlet meeting gold. Fantasies clashing with reality.

"You gave in to your nature," he whispers as he clutches her tightly, "You had to know how it felt, just as Edward did."

"I am damned," she says, "God forgive me. I am a murderer."

"This is not supposed to be easy, please believe me. Esme, all of our kind are made for this. You gave in to your nature. You have done nothing wrong. It takes time. So much time."

"Carlisle," she sobs, "Carlisle, I knew what I was doing and I couldn't resist."

"It is very difficult," there is an earnest, pleading edge to his voice, "You have to believe me. Edward did it too."

She knows why he omits himself from his reassurances. He has never fallen from grace so absolutely. She loathes him for it and wants nothing more than to be just like him.

"It happens," he vows, "It happens. Oh Esme, by God...I love you with all of my soul."

All the noise recedes and their world is silent once more at his words. The only noise is their breathing, belaboured and unnecessary, conveying the sudden intensity that is sparking from both of them. It is as if it has slipped from his mouth, unbidden. It swirls in the air between them; the thick, obtuse air which coats everything with a sheen. She is suddenly painfully aware of his closeness and the agony on his perfect face. She has known of his love, though of what nature she could not be sure, but never heard him voice it and now he has, she feels suddenly desperately needy to show him how that love is returned.

She has broken free of the shroud,the cell.

She is Esme.

With him she is so much more than that.

But he gives her no opportunity to speak.

"Forgive me," he murmurs and she realises that he is shaking against her body, "I did not want to tell you. I know I am not deserving. I did not mean...I cannot bear to see you punish yourself for your instincts. Nothing I love with such purity, such clarity, can ever be damned. You must believe me."

She sobs again, this time feeling his absolution fully. It is as if he has opened a floodgate and from it pours all of the horrors of her newborn life, ending with the murder of that poor human. She sees his face, tastes his blood and knows there is no way back. There is,inevitably, only the way forward.

"Can you forgive me?"

She doesn't want to sound as if she is pleading but, of course, by it's very nature it is a plea. He pulls her tighter to him, fully out of the bath, and her soaked body is flush against his.

There is no eroticism or lust in their embrace, and while it is an inevitable current which flows between them, to acknowledge it is impossible in this moment. Instead their embrace is desperate.

"You cannot know how much I love you," he is confessing to her, he is suddenly fully open, " I love you."

She wants to cry with relief and with shame, instead she is just content to remain pressed to him.

"There is nothing to forgive," he answers her further, "I should have protected you. I have failed you."

She sees the last decade in his eyes. She knows he means more than just her newborn life when he speaks about protecting her. She was never his responsibility, merely a girl who'd taken a ridiculously childish tumble from a tree. Yet Carlisle Cullen had always felt responsible for her; he felt her failed marriage acutely, her bid for freedom wholly, her dead child deeply. He hates himself, she knows, for changing her to this. She had been ignoring that very fact for the last nine months as she spent every day in his company feigning ignorance because she thought she had conquered the urges which had become so inherent to her. It pained her that she could only face this fact as the reality of her true nature was made apparent to her. It had been easy to fool herself into believing she was incapable of the crime she had committed only hours ago, when he knew that his choice to bite her had set her on this trajectory the moment his teeth broke her cold skin.

" How can you love me now? I am...I am-," the lack of words infuriates her, "I am damned!"

"No! No," he cries fiercely, "No, no. It is I who am damned! I deserve nothing from you. I am the one who is damned."

His sudden outburst catches her off guard, the terror in his voice driving something within her to the surface that she does not fully understand. She grips his face between her hands, though her hold is soft, and looks directly into his eyes. He does not flinch at the hue of them, even though he might want to.

"You are not! You are the most wonderful, kind man I have ever known."

His face is a portrait of despair and she selflessly fumbles about for something, anything to say that will wipe that look away.

"Carlisle," she feels as if she is about to lie, yet it feels right too, "You saved me."

Once she says it she realises how true it is.

She also feels a little cheated by her own nature as what she has done is condemned to the past with those words; she is coming, much more quickly than is right, to accept the blood lust and its consequences. Perhaps it is his reassurance, perhaps it is the profession of his love for her or perhaps it is just want their kind do. She will never forget what she has done, no, but she will learn how to live with it. She has to learn how to live with it.

"You have given me another chance," she says softly, "To prove to myself that I am worth something. Another chance to lead my own life. The life I was supposed to have."

She has not told him about Charles - she cannot bring herself to tell him. She knows though that he has an inkling of her life before. She has never told him that she doesn't miss the life he believes he stole from her either and she hasn't yet shared with him that she has started to feel content with the idea of this second life. What right does she have to feel otherwise? What right does she have to eternity and not be happy with it? Nor is she prepared to tell him that she would not have chosen life had she been given the choice; she would have chosen the still, dark cavern of nothingness over any semblance of life before this. There had been no life to live for. That very thought had pulled her feet to the edge of the cliff and propelled her down into the crashing darkness of the waves below. The thought of what she did not have had driven her downwards. Then the cold envelope of water, compressing her lungs, snapping the column of her body, claiming her in its very suddenness.

She is embarrassed by what she had so readily chosen to do as she sits in the water now. Wasn't it the most selfish of sins, to take one's life? It was only selfish, she supposes, if you know you have a reason to live but make the conscious decision not to, regardless.

For her, it had been very simple.

It had never felt like her life anyway; she was always waiting for it to start. She was often a passive observer to the life of a recklessly free girl, then a broken woman, that she hardly recognised as herself. She would stand on the fringes, a shadow of herself, as her parents made her choices, as Charles brutalised her, as she took her own life.

"Carlilse," she tries again, "Carlisle I am grateful for this."

He lifts his head and loosens his hold on her suddenly, his face an impassive mask of nothingness. He goes to the sink, shaking his head slightly, and twists the taps on. He pools water in his hands and drenches his face. She is perplexed by such a human action as she remains standing in the cool water watching him. He was, only a moment ago, professing his love for her and now she feels as if he is miles away.

He pulls his face from the basin, "You are too forgiving of me. You do not need to-"

"I won't punish you for making me happy," she insists, "Despite the difficulties. The hard parts. I won't punish you for that."

"Do not give me more than I deserve," he whispers, hands clutching the sink, "I do not deserve your kindness, even less your love," His teeth grind together, "Don't pity me."

His face is desperately sad as he turns towards her.

"Carlisle, you do not have the choice in that matter," she curls up and falls back into the bath, landing with a splash which sends pink-tinted water all over the floor, "I have loved you since I was a child. When I woke up I was so...content that I had found you."

Her words are so inadequate.

His eyes flash with curiosity but he stays exactly where he is, bent over the sink.

She has never told them of her first thoughts either, though she knows that Edward has stored them for nearly a year. At first she didn't want Carlisle to know that she had thought she was in hell but that he, her angel, was there to rescue her. Even in the present, in this grave situation, she chides herself softly over her very childish interpretation of the situation. But a smile alights on her lips despite her self-criticism as she thinks of his face floating above her as her eyes fluttered open.

He looks at her then, his voice a whisper, "I wish you would not be so forgiving of me."

"Because he was not?"

His head snaps up and while he does not answer, she very much takes this as her confirmation that her inclination was correct. She has witnessed Edward's love for him but she has also witnessed his loathing. She has to be honest with him. She will not lie to him or deceive him; she has saw how Edward blames him and she thinks, while she loves the boy deeply, she knows that it is unfair.

"I cannot-"

She watches as his hands tighten around the basin and she fears it will crack under his hands.

"He is not here," she whispers, almost as if it is a challenge, "He is not here for you to protect! I do not resent you as he has. I will not, could not, make you feel as he does!"

"As he does...at times," he says, "And you should too."

But there is no resolution in his statement. He is shaking where he stands.

She stands up and steps lightly onto the floor, her feet trailing cold water across the tiles as she goes towards him. Around his waist she curls one arm and across his chest she curls the other. She presses her face to his back and her cheek fits in the muscular curve.

"You cannot love me," he says, his voice cracking in denial, "I do not deserve your love."

It's strange that she feels entirely the opposite; he should despise her, yet here he is, professing his love for her yet refusing to acknowledge hers. His refusal hurts, his determination not to give in hurts too.

For the first time she is strong and beautiful – she will demand the love of this man because to live without it, and know it is so real, is ultimately wrong.

"You cannot make me feel. You can tell me what to feel but you cannot make me feel it," she answers almost angrily, "And you have known of my love since the moment I awoke and you have been deserving of it for eternity."

From his chest he lifts her hands and between her knuckles he plants a kiss. His eyes are black with agony, his hands trembling.

"You are my paradise," he entwines their fingers on his chest, "A paradise I don't deserve."

"And you are mine...let me have my paradise."

_"__Was she thy God,_  
___lovely to attract_  
___Thy love, not thy subjection"_

___Paradise Lost, John Milton_

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**Please read and review. **


	3. Act 3: Possessing or pursuing no delight

**Author's note: A very BIG thank you to everyone who read, and reviewed, this story. I really enjoyed writing it. So thank you very much.**

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_"So are you to my thoughts as food to life,_

_Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;_

_And for the peace of you I hold such strife_

_As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;_

_Now proud as an enjoyer and anon_

_Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,_

_Now counting best to be with you alone…"_

He dances with her in the shards of moonlight that make pale ribbons across the floor. They dance to the music of silence. Edward had played for them earlier but now he is gone, and the echoes of _The Wedding Dance_ and_ Vision of Salome_ are all that is left of his beautiful playing. His hand hold hers reverently and his fingers trace over the tips of hers. He will not peel his eyes from her face, as if he is frightened she may melt into smoke. The silk of her wedding dress rustles as they dance and to her ears it seems indecent. This is as close as they have ever been and it is enough for now. She feels everything at this moment; the hard planes that are hidden just under his shirt as they press into her, the gentle gusting of his breath across her face, the tension that is thrumming through his body.

"Is this real?"

His voice is tentative and full of awe. This journey has not been untroubled for them both and to find themselves here, wedding rings wrapped around respective fingers, is as unbelievable as it is wonderful for a variety of reasons. Her mind returns, just for a moment, to the bathroom upstairs, to the pink-hued water and cries of agony. Then she supresses the thought and forces herself to look forward to her beautiful reality.

"Yes, absolutely Carlisle," she whispers against his ear.

"Are you mine, truly mine?"

He presses his cheek to hers, his fingers ghosting along the curve of her neck. He has been touching her like this all evening; pressing his fingers against hers as they stood before the altar, holding her hand as they drove home, touching her lips as he deposited her on the other side of the threshold. It's as if he is checking she is real and that she is not simply a figment of his lonely imagination. To him she imagines she is a delicate flower, petals too tender to be touched but too tempting to resist. It makes her feel embarrassed.

"Yes," they stop in the middle of the moonlight and it floods over their skin, "I am real and I am yours."

She traces the shape of his jaw and rests her hand against his cheek. He exhales a shuddering breath and she watches as his eyes fall on to their outstretched hands. He experiments with their fingers; how they fit together, how they hold each other. The experiment seems preliminary. Will they fit, she wonders? She knows he wonders too.

The awe on his face is almost indecent to behold then suddenly it hardens. His eyes grow dark in the moonlight. She thinks for an instant that it might be desire but then she sees his fear. It makes her grown uneasy for him.

"I have never –," his voice fails and his mouth shapes words that cannot come, as if he is confiding something he has never told her before.

Shame floods his features and he shakes his head. Now the balance is shifted. Where he has been her creator and her tutor, she knows he is hoping that she will guide them in this. Her nerves match his but she is determined to be falsely confident for the sake of this man whom she loves so much.

"I know," she leans forward slightly and presses her forehead to his, "It will be…okay."

She will not say perfect. She won't put that pressure on him. Indeed she will not enforce it on them. They stall for a moment, their heads pressed together. She traces her fingers along the collar of his shirt and he literally shivers. So much so she can see it.

"Will you tell me about it?"

There are secrets, she knows, that he keeps pressed to his soul. Secrets which only lonely men can know. The agony of solitude that he thought would never end, finished abruptly by her, must seem like an attractive option when faced with the night ahead, she imagines. She knows he is frightened of the prospect. Married before God, he stands on a precipice that she knows he dreads, and it makes her feel the shift in power so acutely that she is dumbfounded by it. And for her it is something she so desperately wants yet is frightened to have.

Never once has she wielded such power.

In some ways she is so much more experienced than him. He has been brutally honest, despite his embarrassment, on this front. She admires him for his candid admission and, in fact, sees the sanctity of it where he is humiliated by it. She wishes, with agony sometimes, that she could be the same for him.

"I was so lonely," he whispers darkly, "So alone. I never thought I would see my own wedding night…It seems so unfitting a blessing."

He shakes his head and his disbelief is evident.

"Not anymore," she assures, "Not ever. You will never be alone."

He kisses her then. It is a hard, suggestive kiss but she believes it is unintentional. Until now their kisses have been chaste and light and that has been at Carlisle's behest. There is nothing of this now; only darkness. And his grateful disbelief. She feels his disbelief as his tongue presses against her lips in the type of kiss that has never been shared between them before. She gasps and falls fully into it, marvelling rather guiltily at his natural ability.

Then suddenly he withdraws from her and tugs at her hand to beckon her to take a step. She wants to pull him back to her mouth, where her skin had only grown accustomed to such pleasure, but she is too frightened to ask this of him.

"Might I take you to our bed?"

She almost laughs at the absurdity of his manners but he is too fragile, too sensitive, for that. She will laugh with him in the morning, over such a formal request, but right now she simply nods. He steps forward and scoops her up into his arm.

The room is welcoming and warm. The foresight to light a fire had blessed him earlier, it seems, and now she understands where he disappeared to when she was removing her shoes. Of course there is no need for a fire but it is a familiar comfort to them both - to Carlisle in particular. She knows that they don't actually need fire or warmth but somehow he needs it. It dances in his study every night, throwing his face into relief as he rests over his journals. He lights one after he returns from every hunt, then sits before it for hours at a time in contemplative silence which she fears she will never understand. She watches as he does this, his brown creasing as he stares into the flames, and she marvels at his clever mind and how she will never know all that he knows.

He hesitates beside the fire place and then steps forward towards the door and for a moment her soul grows frightened. He has changed his mind, it seems. Too much, too soon. She accepts defeat right there and then. To be his wife is enough and in time she will be his lover. She feels slightly relieved too. She might have experience but not any she can call pleasant. She did not want to spend tonight alone though, the first night as his wife, but she will accept it. Perhaps he shall retire to his study to write his journals, or read his books, as he always does of an evening. Maybe he has to hunt or to work.

"I have to change," he murmurs, "I did not bring anything in here for…bed. I will return in a moment."

She almost laughs with relief, then nods, "Of course."

For a second she loathes that she doubted him. She has tried, and on the whole succeeded, to put her trust fully in him. At times though she cannot help but be the woman she once was; a woman who could not trust the men that she was bound to, who doubted them very fully. The fact that she allows even a shadow of doubt to cloud her mind about Carlisle or Edward leaves her feeling bereft with guilt every time it happens. In time and as her memories fade it will stop but at this moment her fear is, at intervals, crippling. She shakes her head and, refusing to allow her own worries to cloud their night, tugs at the ribbon resting over her hips until it loosens.

It is then she suddenly realises her predicament. Her dress is closed at her spine, a row of beautifully fine pearl buttons pulling the ivory silk together, which she cannot manage on her own. Edward helped her this morning but, to ensure his own mental preservation she imagines, he has absconded for a few nights. He has assumed the reality of this night should be theirs alone and excused himself to visit Chicago. So she will stand until her husband returns to their room, helplessly toying with the lace on her sleeve and feeling hugely inadequate.

When he returns, after only a few minutes, she is surprised by what he wears. He is wearing lounging bottoms and slung over his shoulders is the velvet dressing gown that he often puts on after work, to retire to his study. She has always admired how it sits on him, revealing the work shirt he has worn all day but making him look a little more at home. It is his exposed chest though which surprises her. She has only ever witnessed him fully dressed in three-piece suits and fine shirts or trussed up in coats and hats so to see him so undressed is odd to her. It is, she must admit, exciting too. She realises she is staring and averts her eyes.

"I did not know what one wears to bed," he says by way of an explanation, wringing his hands as he closes the door with his foot, "I very rarely lie down."

They laugh then at his statement and the tension dissipates a little. He gives her a curious look.

"You are still dressed?"

She realises it is her turn to explain her current state of dress.

"I can't take it off on my own," she offers simply, "Too many intricate buttons."

His gulp is audible but he steps forward, the edges of his coat flying out on either side.

"I can-"

"Would you mind?"

She turns her back to him, facing the mirror as she does so. One by one he pulls the buttons and she realises the quiet confidence that is so prominent in him in other situations is with him now; even if it's false. He never once takes his eyes from her reflection as he does it and their golden eyes stay locked together. He unbuttons it slowly, painfully, and she realises that this is the first time her husband is disrobing her. It is not seedy or embarrassing like it once had been for her. This time it is pure. Each time he frees a button the pads of his fingers brush against the silk of her chemise, and only one layer of fine material separates his skin from hers. She shivers with every fleeting touch.

"There," he dips his face and kissed the nape of her neck, "Finished."

Then he averts his eyes and turns his gaze towards the fire. She puzzles for a moment and then reaches out to touch his hand when she finally understands that he is giving her privacy to undress. A brazen confidence grips her as it has never gripped her before.

"Don't turn away," she demands, wiggling her shoulders so the dress quickly pools around her feet, "Look at me, my Carlisle."

Obeying her command he turns to gaze at her. His smile, his face, is so painfully shy that she pities and adores him in equal amounts at that precise moment.

Once shy with the body that had been so easily ruined she is now proud. Her new life has not quite rendered her vain but it has afforded her a confidence she has not previously known. He is the real reason for her confidence though, she knows. She stares at him and is pleased by the reaction. He drinks her in slowly, shyness being disposed by agony and agony being chased by excitement across his face. He cannot tear his eyes away for a long minute and she does not want him to.

"You are so beautiful," he says, reaching out his pale fingers to touch her shoulder, "So beautiful. Your beauty is unparalleled. I have never looked upon such beautiful a sight. I have known, visited, committed all the wonders of the world to memory and yet not once has there been such beauty before my eyes as there is now."

His words are so honest that they fall from his mouth as if they are prayers.

His admiration is embarrassing.

"If I could blush," she says lightly as she unpins her hair and it tumbles around her face, "I would."

"I think I may be blushing…for the first time in years," he laughs though his voice is gritty with lust as he withdraws his hand.

Her skin aches in its absence and she wants to tell him this but she cannot.

An awkward silence imposes itself on them and then they laugh again. Her husband pushes his hair back from his forehead and sighs, twisting the loose belt of his robe in his hand.

"Is it like this for humans?"

"Worse," she answers flippantly, taking a step towards him.

When he stiffens she realises what is crossing his mind and she feels nauseous with understanding. She has remained vague about her life before but he is not stupid or naïve. He knows her experiences were far from romantic. She wishes she had said nothing and she can see he wishes he did not ask. He opens his mouth to say something, an apology no doubt, but she presses her fingers against his lips to silence him.

"It won't be like that," she assures him softly, "I promise. Come here, kiss me."

She opens her hands up and he steps closer to her. Right now she does not want him to speak, to voice those concerns, so she covers his mouth with hers. She does not want him to worry or panic or reserve himself in front of her.

She kisses him as she has always wanted to – freely and almost greedily. She combs her fingers through his hair, moans against his mouth as she feels him embroiling himself. She lifts her leg to wrap around his waist and when he hesitates to hold her, she takes his hand gently and places it there.

That is all they need.

His hands find the rhythm that he wants and his lips follow suit. He lifts her, echoing the way he once carried her from the forest. This time her desire is for him, only him, and it is mutual in its return.

"We are a perfect fit," he says emphatically, laying her down on the silk sheets, looking for her reassurance to continue. His hand traces the outline of her chemise delicately, his eyes taking in every contour. His fingers shake against her thigh as they trail along the lace.

She nods, "Yes, we are."

She slides his robe down his arms in one swift motion, throwing it aside. The arms which have always carried her are pale and solid as they are revealed. He hides, under his clothing, a body that belongs to a god. She cannot believe his shyness. He reverently strips her of her underwear, at pains to be gentle with her as he does so but at the last moment he lets go a little and throws them aggressively to the floor. She sees the tension in his skin, in the line of his neck, as he fights with all that is good in him to keep his control under check. A little growl rumbles from the back of his throat, comes from between pressed lips.

She will not ask him to break his control now but she vows to do so in the future.

"The love I bare you," he murmurs frantically against her skin, resting his head on her pale abdomen as he grows evidently overwhelmed, "The love I bare you is more than I can ever show you. Let me try. Esme, how I must try…"

And of course they fit. They were always supposed to fit.

They are the most perfect of puzzles. She likes to think of them as long-lost wonders, suddenly reunited in this, the bed he has carried her to.

At his hands she is at his mercy and the mercy she is afforded is beautiful.

Later, they lie on the bed, wrapped in each other and discarding the sheets to a pile at their feet. The fire is dying, its embers aglow in a last show of valour. She stares at the embers and then looks to his face. Closed eyes, tranquillity dressing his brow, he smiles because he knows she is admiring him. This sort of open admiration embarrasses him and he shakes his head.

"I have never known such…" she knows he is searching for the right words as he breaks the silence, his eyes remaining closed, "Such pleasure."

He sounds ridiculously innocent and incredulous in his observation.

"Nor have I."

Her words are genuine and honest and all her truth is bared to him. Finally he opens his eyes and they are sporting a new hue. They are the colour of coals, his irises speckled with embers that are aglow. He lowers his head and presses his lips to hers. There is a new confidence in his movement as he pulls her nearer, enveloping her in his arms, wrapping her fully so she is trapped. The kiss is long and languorous and into it he is pouring all of his pleasure at their union.

There is a balance now; they have explored their fit.

"I need not compliment you," she says softly, coyly.

"No," he shakes his head again, "Please do not. I do not think I could withstand such unwholesome praise."

"It may be unwholesome but it is certainly deserved," she laughs as his lips turn up in an unwilling smile and his eyes flutter closed again.

He shakes his head in embarrassment. She is overwhelmed by the impact this moment has had on him. It is profound. Then he swallows and shakes his head again.

"I have eternity to practise…to improve," he says in a jocular rush, eliciting from her a girlish giggle.

He smiles rather roguishly. His mouth cocks up on one side, making prominent his dimples, and she realises it is a smile she has never witnessed from him before and he shakes his head again to dispel his embarrassment. She loves him so much in this silly, beautiful moment.

And in this moment they are the ages they are supposed to be, discovering marriage as it is supposed to be discovered. They fit perfectly.

"Yes we do have eternity to practise," she whispers, attempting to be sultry despite her shyness.

He opens his eyes and they are on fire. His face suddenly takes on that hard mask of concentration and that unnameable darkness that she has grown so fond of tonight returns too.

"Good," he flips her suddenly so she is under him, "Would it be inconvenient for me to begin my studies directly?"

That giggle, so absent from her life since she was young, bubbles from her again.

"No, not inconvenient at-" but her words are swallowed as his lips claim hers.

_Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;_

_Sometime all full with feasting on your sight_

_And by and by clean starved for a look;_

_Possessing or pursuing no delight,_

_Save what is had or must from you be took._

_Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,_

_Or gluttoning on all, or all away."_

Sonnet 75

William Shakespeare

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**Thank you for reading this. Please R&R.**


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